Medea: From Epic to Tragedy

The history of Medea's place in Greco-Roman literature is long and complex. For Valerius' Flavian readers that history extended back some eight centuries and included works in two languages and a multiplicity of genres: epic and tragedy, lyric and elegy. Complex too is Medea's biography, for her roles include Jason's virgin-lover in Colchis, murderous wife in Iolcus, abandoned mother in Corinth, poisonous stepmother in Athens, potential filicide in Colchis and even wife of Achilles in the underworld. But of these six episodes two stand out: the epic story of the princess who helps the foreign hero and the tragic tale of the woman who kills her sons.